My Amazing New Invioce Template

Since getting the new logo from Nubby Twiglet I decided to give my invoice a bit of a spruce up. My old one was ok, it did the job I guess.

The new one I put together in Excel is now perfect. It calculates everything for me automatically (as any Excel spreadsheet should) and the layout makes my eyes happy.



Do you have slightly weird passionate feelings towards your invoice layout? Hmmmm. No? Just me?!

If anyone would like a copy of the Excel file to use as your own template I would be happy to share. Just flick me and email and I'll hook you up with an invoice that makes eyes happy!

It's Because I Want To, Not Because I have To

It's been an amazing warm beautiful Vancouver weekend ... and I've spent the entire weekend inside. See, look how committed I am to my self made deadline this time! But dam it's hard. While friends are swimming and frolicking in the sunshine I'm sitting inside on my laptop designing up a storm in illustrator and finishing up the final touches on the files.

But the best part is that I'm not doing any of it because I have to, it's all because I want to. I reckon that's pretty awesome!

My Absolute Favorite Costume

From Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland ...


Sometimes I really do wonder why I picked a Bachelor of Microbiology and Immunology over a Bachelor of Fashion Design!

Launch Countdown - 100 Days

Three big things are happening on the 19th of October that I'm beyond excited about and want to share!

The first big thing is the launch of the new collection I've been working on. It's going to be super dark and geeky and I can't wait to see it all put together. Lately it's been all about illustrator, hand cut prototypes and late nights. There's going to be 8 designs in the collection (I managed to stick with 8!) and then lots of one of a kind designs to keep the collection evolving.

The second is the launch of my website! I'll be saying goodbye to Etsy in October and arohasilhouettes.com will be directed to a beautiful new site designed by Lyndsay of White Pixels. Her work is absolutely flawless and I've been wanting to work with her for almost two years on a custom site for Aroha Silhouettes. I can't wait to see what she comes up with.

The third thing is that it will be my 28th birthday! It seems like the perfect date to launch a new collection and a website.

So mark it on your calendar, 19th October 2010, and let the 100 day countdown begin!

Brilliant Bare Photography

Via The 25th Century

Self Made Deadlines

I’ve noticed something over the last couple of weeks. It’s pretty obvious really, but for some reason it feels good dam good to write it out loud. A deadline is mighty hard to stick to when you’re the only one who cares about it!. With nobody nagging, checking in on progress and cheerleading me towards completion it gets really hard to stick to a goal date.

It should be as simple as making it happen and getting it done.

Amanda Wachob Tattoos

Stunning tattoos by Amanda Wachob.

Do Something Worth Criticizing

I've been listening to Seth Godins audiobook 'Tribes' this week and there's one line from it that has really stuck in my head. 'Do something worth criticizing'. It's so simple, but really got me thinking.

My very first collection Phantasmal generated some negative comments on the internet. Things like 'anyone could do that' and 'vinyl records are just junk'. It was remarkable enough to be worth criticizing. My second collection Lucid Contrast received no negative comments (well, that I could find anyway). Guess which collection was more successful? By far Phantasmal!

Instead of taking the easy road and creating something mediocre why not design something that deserves the attention? How could you design something the critics will criticize?

In the end, boring products and ideas don't deserve to spread!

Procrastination Control

I've been so totally useless in the last week. Every time I sit down with to do some design work I somehow seem to get distracted. I have all the best intentions I swear! But before I know it I'm browsing through my reader, googling this that and everything, checking the next weeks unreliable weather forecast and looking through the wedding album of someone I've never met on Facebook. Searching for one thing leads to something else more interesting and so the cycle continues.

BUT I have a not so secret weapon to deal with the distractions and the lure of the internet - enter Leechblock.


Leechblock is an awesome Firefox extension that is worth installing, even if you just use it once or twice. You just tell it what sites you want to block and how long for. I force myself to block all kinds of sites and the amount of work I can get done while they are blocked is amazing. Procrastination control!

Paper Prototypes And A Tingly Thumb

I've had a tingly/numb thumb for the last 3 hours from going overboard cutting out tons of paper prototype designs. After a couple of weeks of staying up till the wee hours almost every night designing like mad it was time to see how they looked off the computer screen.

I find it helps to be able to hold a design which has been made on the computer up against myself to see how it looks and to check out how the sizing is. Some are WAY too big to use in real life.

Now the really hard part - nailing it down to just eight designs!

Typing feels weird, I hope the feeling in my thumb comes back soon. My fault for using kids paper scissors I guess.

Incarnation By Mark Ryden

I remember the first time I stumbled across Mark Ryden's work. I was 15 and watching a friend get her first tattoo and while browsing though the magazines in the shop I found an article about him and his art and fell in love. Seriously, one of my life goals is to get rich enough to buy an original!

Although this may make it start to look like I have some weird meat fetish (I swear I don't!), I can't help but post this amazing painting by Mark Ryden.


You can also see an amazing time lapse of this painting here.

New Collection Inspiration

I've been going full speed this week working on my new collection. Here are a few of my favourite images that I've been looking at for inspiration
Oh yes, it's going to be extremely geeky!

I Could Kill Hours On This Site

It's so so fun! It reminds me of when you drop food colouring into water drop by drop. I promise it's worth a play!

escapemotions.com - flame

New Business Cards

One of the funnest parts of having a new logo is getting new business cards!

My old cards were a bit random. Purple, black and white with a halftone pattern (?!?!) on the front and little love hearts and giant text taking up all the space on the black. I’ve been looking forward to replacing them for a while.

For the new cards I wanted to keep things super simple, letting the new logo speak for itself. I had my heart completely set on using embossing for the new cards but a mighty large quote changed my mind on that pretty quickly. Perhaps one day when I need a gazillion cards I will go with that option.

The Gotham typeface in two different weights was used for the text on the back which matches the logotype on the front of the cards. I chose a matte aqueous coating for the cards, which gives them this perfect not to shiny but not too rough feel. And this allows them to be written on with a ballpoint pen which is useful.

Another change from the old cards was the decision not to put my contact phone number on them. In the year and a half I had with the old cards, I think about 99% of contact was made via email so it seemed like having a phone number on there was a little pointless. Will see how it goes though, if it’s a problem I can always add it back on there.

So here they are ...


In other random news, on Tuesday morning my head was attacked by a crazed crow! It actually made my head bleed a little. Evil evil birds!

States Of The Heart By Luis Marte

I've been randomly looking for ideas and inspiration for my next photo shoot lately and I stumbled across this kind of icky, but uniquely awesome shoot by Luis Marte.

Sorry vegeterians, avert your eyes!


LOVE it!